Outside the lair:
This wasteland chokes my hope, my breath.
My doomed path looks only to death.
My Burden hangs with heavy strain.
It makes each step a piercing pain:
A fiery wheel, an Eye to see—
To mark, to burn, to follow me.
Dim memory from a long-passed rest:
A small glass phial against my breast.
This chilly thing fashioned to bless
Seems to enshroud death’s emptiness.
Caught in such darkness, can I hope?
Can weak hands catch so high a rope?
O, for a star to give me breath!
My doomed path looks only to death.
–
Within the lair:
The air is stench, a demon’s breath—
O, for a star to hinder death!
Black tunnels strangle life from light—
O, for a star to give me sight!
Bones dangle in this slime-slicked hole:
The afterglow of Shelob’s soul—
In this black temple of the night
Is there a star to give me sight?
I thought my Burden strife to bear,
Yet in the horror of this lair . . .
O, for a single hope of grace,
Salvation from this deathly place!
–
The swollen monster’s myriad eyes—
O, for a star to hear my cries!
She staggers forward, a vicious pace –
O, for a single hope of grace!
Mired within this skeletal wreath,
How hard are desperation’s teeth!
Shackled not by strength, but slime,
My life caught in suspended time,
I gaze into horrendous eyes—
O, for a star to hear my cries!
–
To die within this rock-choked cave;
No light, no wind to cleanse my grave,
No star to cast its pale, soft gleams,
To grace with hope my last death-dreams—
O, for a star to give me sight,
To save me from this mouth of night!
–
Dim memory from a long-passed rest . . .
A small glass phial against my breast:
This chilly thing fashioned to bless
Seems to enshroud death’s emptiness.
Caught in such darkness, can I hope?
Can weak hands catch so high a rope?
I bring the glass out from my breast,
Believe in more than emptiness –
With the last droplets of my will,
I lift the phial—my heart falls still.
“O for a star to give me sight,
To save me from this mouth of night!”
–
“Gilthoniel A Elbereth!”
Light explodes—a perfumed breath;
It blasts and blinds her myriad eyes,
And now it is my foe who cries,
Staggering back, a cowering mass
Before this tiny phial of glass!
–
From the slime-webbed wreath, I twist away,
Still guided by the pale star-ray.
Into the graying dusk I flee,
Worn and terrified . . . but free.
Caught in death’s darkness, can I hope?
Can weak hands catch so high a rope?
Yes, now I see—though darkness shrouds
My cold glass soul, and horror crowds—
A hope still lives, concealed within,
Waiting to be brought out again,
If only I believe in it
And have the faith to summon it.